How to Get Lean And Live A Healthy Lifestyle

005: Why Healthy Fats Won’t Make You Fat

It sounds like a contradiction…me telling you to eat healthy fats to lose more fat.

But it’s the truth.

Most people try to eliminate fats because they were told fats weren’t good for them (and that’s only half true), or they see the amount of calories and shy away. While the calories are higher in high fat things like nut butters, oils, and nuts it’s still important to include healthy fats in your diet.

First, let’s cover the fats you can say goodbye to for good:

Trans fats

Butter

Lard

Whole Milk

Hydrogenated anything…like margarine, and shortenings

Keep in mind some of these trans fats are cloaked in things you love like commercially baked cookies, pastries, candy bars, and fried foods. This type of fat can result in unhealthy cholesterol levels and chances of cardiovascular disease.

By eliminating the bad fats and including the healthy fats you can truly see a difference in weight loss and fat loss, and better skin and hair. What we can’t see is the inside of us. But our nutrition effects inflammation, our heart health, and every cell in our bodies.

The good thing to remember is that there are two main sources of energy through eating: carbohydrates and fats.

Speaking of things to remember…we’re going to be covering a lot of listing of fats today and to keep track of what to do and what not to do, I’ve made a free easy Healthy Fat Guide to go along with this episode. So instead of taking notes, just reference www.healthyleanlife.com/5 for episode 5 and grab your free Healthy Fat Printable Guide.

Back to healthy fats…

Healthy fats are an important energy source as it’s the most energy dense macronutrient.

You can lose fat and gain lean muscle faster by using healthy fats as your source of energy. Don’t overdo it. But have some days that are lower carbs and higher fats.

The important takeaway here is: on days that you are including more healthy fats in your diet, you should have lower carbs. Your energy source is from the healthy fats, which as we mentioned is the higher energy more dense energy source.

To further that, if you have high carbohydrate days and high fat days in the same day will result in energy or fat storage because you are taking in more than your body can use at the time and it will tuck it away for later.

This storage situation worsens when the types of carbs you eat are the ones high in sugar and refined carbohydrates. So, the pastries, white breads and potatoes, and white rice…in other words, the ones that break down in your body as sugars are going to go into excess or stored energy. And unfortunately excess energy isn’t stored as muscle, it’s stored as fat.

It’s also important to note that having a healthy balance of fats is necessary. This is greatly misconceived because people were told to lower their saturated fats (as found in beef who have been fed high corn diets, coconut oil, palm oils, butter, cheese, and milk) because they were associated with getting conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, poor blood viscosity, prostate and breast cancer, diabetes, kidney problems, MS, stroke. (1)

Now if you read some articles you’ll immediately think you have to eliminate saturated fats as people universally dub them as “unhealthy”. These are the ones that come from:

Animal food sources like red meat

Chicken with skin

Dairy products

But the truth is, these only become a problem with risk with two other poor dietary choices that are: when the intake of saturated and unsaturated fats is greatly imbalanced and the diet is high in sugar and processed carbohydrates. For example if you are continually eating red meat, dairy products, and bagels or pastries then your balance is going to be off and you’re going to be getting far more omega-6 in your diet as compared to omega-3’s. So it’s good to aim for a ratio of 1:1 and most American diets these days are way offset in the range of 16:1 or even 20:1, where saturated fats are predominant. When the ratio is that far offset is when you get conditions popping up like diabetes, stroke, some cancers , and high LDL cholesterol levels as we talked about a minute ago.

Where do you get the best sources of Omega-3’s?

Flaxseeds

Walnuts

Sardines

Salmon

Grass-fed beef

Tofu

Shrimp

Brussels Sprouts

Cauliflower

Omega-6 Sources are:

Poultry

Nuts

Whole-grain breads

Vegetable oils

Flax oil

Hemp, sunflower, corn, and safflower oils

Pumpkin seeds

Acai berry

Cashews, pecans, walnuts

Here’s some practical adjustments you can do today to ensure you’re getting the right healthy fats:

We’ve gone over a lot of things about healthy fats today and also what makes fats unhealthy. I want you to have the best resources available to you so you can easily reference what to do and what not to do. I’ve created an entire healthy fats guide that goes along with this episode. You can grab right here.

One of the most important points from today is creating a balance of the Omegas. You might wonder how to tell if you are experiencing side effects from an imbalance and it can show up as chronic inflammation, chronic pain and injuries as an athlete or someone who works out regularly.

More severe imbalances show up when the diet is high in starchy carbohydrates and side effects include risk for diabetes, heart disease and a wealth of other conditions.

What I hoped you’ve gained from today is that healthy fats won’t make you fat. Great sources of healthy fats are necessary in the diet and can be used to accelerate fat loss when you use it as an energy resource.